Wednesday, January 8, 2014

My Baseball Hall of Fame ballot is stretched

Compared to last year, I stuffed my Baseball Hall of Fame
ballot this year. Stuffed it like a nudist packing a suitcase for the South
Pole.

And yet I wonder if I overcompensated. Like going from
dieting to an all-you-can-eat smorgasbord in a day.

Now that members of the Baseball Writers Association of
America (BBWAA) are more transparent with their reasons for voting for players
on their HOF ballots it has become clear to me that I may have higher standards
than most of my peers.

I don’t know how or why.

After voting for only three players – Jeff Bagwell, Craig
Biggio and Mike Piazza – for induction into the hallowed Cooperstown museum
last year, I discovered that among the 125 active and honorary HOF voting
members (out of 559 total voters) who posted their picks on the BBWAA.com
website, I was one of only nine who listed less than four candidates on their
ballot and I was the only voter who named just Bagwell, Biggio and Piazza on
his/her ballot. Mind you, we can vote for a maximum of 10 players and not one
player earned enough votes to receive induction in 2013.

We pitched a shutout in the worse way. Didn’t give a living
soul a chance to enter Cooperstown’s immortal gates.

What we have here is a big and wide difference of opinion,
which only got more convoluted this year with a large number of new and worthy
first-time candidates – led by Greg Maddux -- added to a ballot as long as the
return lines at the department store after Christmas.

So, I asked myself, am I too tough or too stubborn when it
comes to Hall of Fame voting?

I don’t know how or why.

The easy thing to do is pull the ballot out of the envelope
when it arrives in the mail, pick up a pen and check off 10 names as fast as I
can like Sylvester Stallone punches out fight movies. That would eliminate any
research or agony and make my life a lot less stressful around the holidays for
something I can consider an honor and privilege.

But, truth be known, I spend more time looking over my
ballot than I do on Christmas shopping. I guess I’m the Grinch of Baseball Hall
of Fame voting.

My greatest concern is turning the Hall of Fame into
Cooperstown Lite. If I voted for everyone that I have read or heard from people
who don’t have a vote yet opine of players who “deserve” to be inducted into
the Hall of Fame, we’d have a Baseball Fantasy Hall of Fame League.

Yes, Hall of Fame credentials are numbers based.Numbers are more consequential to baseball
than any other sport.But it goes beyond
stats and comparisons to other Hall of Famers.I ask myself “How did this player singularly distinguish himself and
separate himself from so many other great players of his era?” Did he dominate
the game for the vast majority of his career and at his position? That can be
measured in great part by the number of All Star Games he played in, the number
of post-season awards he won and the statistical categories he led in his
league.

Biggio was checked on my ballot as much for his longevity,
versatility and loyalty with one team in a musical chairs free agent era as for
the fact that he had 3,060 hits, including 668 doubles – the most by any
right-handed batter in the history of the game.

Bagwell and Piazza have been suspected of using Performance Enhancing Drugs, though I have seen
or heard of their names being linked to PED use in any Major League Baseball or
Congressional investigation.

Bagwell averaged 32 home runs and 103 RBIs in his first 14
seasons, playing approximately half of his games in the pitcher-friendly
Houston Astrodome. He scored 1,517 runs and knocked in 1,529 and every other
player who has ever reached the 1,500 plateau in those two categories is in the
Hall of Fame. Bagwell’s career OPS is higher than Hall of Famers Willie Mays,
Hank Aaron and Frank Robinson.

Piazza, quite simply, is one of the best offensive catchers
of all-time. Of his 427 home runs, 396 were hit as a catcher, most ever by a
man in that defensive-minded position. He batted .308 in his career and made
the All-Star team 12 times.

Now comes the new class of Hall of Fame candidates. Greg
Maddux was a shoe-in to be inducted this season.He won 355 games – the most by a right-handed
pitcher since World War II -- and four times won his league’s Cy Young Award
and earned run average title.

Maddux’s teammate in Atlanta, Tom Glavine, also passed the
coveted 300 career win line. He won two Cy Young Awards and won 20 games in a
season five times.Maddux and Glavine
were checked on my ballot this year.

Now comes the tough part. I had never voted for Jack Morris
or Tim Raines so why now?

This was Morris’ 15th and last year on the Hall
of Fame ballot so he had sentiment of his side. He also has a 3.90 career
earned run average, the same as Mike Krukow, who is a Hall of Fame guy but not
a Hall of Fame pitcher. The closest Morris came to winning a Cy Young Award was
a third-place finish in 1981 (when a reliever, Rollie Fingers, won it and Steve
McCatty was runner-up) and 1983 (when LaMarr Hoyt won it and reliever Dan
Quisenberry was second). Morris logged a lot of innings, Opening Day starts,
and pitched one incredibly great game in the final game of the 1991 World
Series. He was extremely durable, but was he truly dominant? I’m a sentimental
guy, but I still couldn’t bring myself to vote for Morris. I’m sorry.

Raines is intriguing because he was such a unique player.
His problem is he’s always been compared to Hall of Famer Rickey Henderson and
I have held that against him as if there is shame in being the second or third
(if you include Pete Rose) best lead-off hitter in the game. Raines was an
All-Star seven consecutive years. He won a batting title. He hit three home
runs in one game and 170 in his career, more than Hall of Famers Joe Cronin,
Enos Slaughter and Lou Brock.Raines led
the league in stolen bases four times, has a higher steal success rate than
Henderson and is fifth all-time in steals. The four in front of him on that
list are all in the Hall of Fame. The Steroid Era has forced voters to give
greater credence to the value of all facets of the game. Raines gets my Hall of
Fame nod now.

So that’s six checks on my 2013 ballot – twice as many as
last year.I also gave consideration to
Curt Schilling, Alan Trammel, Edgar Martinez, Fred McGriff and Lee Smith and
I’m not ready to vote yet for Roger Clemens, Rafael Palmeiro, Sammy Sosa, Mark
McGwire and Barry Bonds, the greatest player I’ve seen in my lifetime. Not with
this deep and talented list of candidates.

But there are two
more players on this year’s ballot – both first-timers – who warranted a close
look. My apologies, Mike Mussina.

Frank Thomas slugged 521 home runs and batted .301 in his
career, won two MVPs, a batting title and four times led his league in on-base
percentage. But he was a Designated Hitter, like Edgar Martinez, for the
majority of his career and I had a hard time getting my head around that. That
said, I considered Thomas and his overwhelming offensive numbers as a
purportedly “clean” player to be more Hall of Fame worthy than Jack Morris and
his pitching stats.

The curse of Jeff Kent was batting behind Bonds and playing
in his considerable shadow. Kent’s power numbers were amazing for a middle
infielder, but his defensive play was average at best. That said, he topped the
great Rogers Hornsby as the all-time home run hitter at his position so that
alone shouldn’t deny Kent entry into the Hall of Fame. And, really, how many
second basemen in the history of the game have batted clean-up? Kent tops them
all.

That brings the check-out total on my Hall of Fame ballot
this year to eight, still two fewer than I am permitted by BBWAA decree, yet my
personal high in 15 years of voting.